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Chlorination Chicken

Britain may not want the quick trade deal it could get with America

Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, was no doubt hoping that the defining image of his visit to Washington this week would be an amiable handshake with his US counterpart. Instead it was raw poultry dunked in an antiseptic bath. American chickens are routinely washed in chlorine. Thanks to EU rules, that keeps them out of the British market. If the UK wants a quick and easy trade deal with the Americans after Brexit, it will probably have to abandon that standard. It will also have to tear up reams of other rules, undermining its own interests and hopes of a trade deal with the EU. Britain could get a quick trade deal with America that way, but it may not want it.